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about the popularity of the assertively mediocre Lady Antebellum reminded me of something I've been thinking ever since Boston's WFNX released their

WFNX is the station I listen to in the car.  Because it was one of the few stations in the country playing "alternative" music before Nirvana hit it big, I maintain a certain loyalty to it despite how often it falls short of being the station I really want it to be.  

(Yes, there is a station that is the station I want it to be: Little Steven's Underground Garage, but after my third Sirius receiver was stolen from the car, I realized that I am simply not the kind of guy who can have that service.)

One of my chief frustrations with WFNX is its reliance on really tired 90's music as the mainstay of its playlist.  Based on my own unscientific, unquantified observations, I would say that the top three artists played on this station are, in this order, Sublime, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Nirvana.

Sublime came in at number 89 on the listener survey.  The Chili Peppers were at 35, and Nirvana were 11.  All of these bands were below other bands that are played much less frequently on this station.  So why on earth would  a radio station do this?  Why wouldn't they play more of the bands their listeners actually like?

So here, finally, is my point.  Excellence is dangerous.  It has to be.  Because any art that really touches and moves me may actually repulse you.  The best art is the stuff that moves you in the very deepest parts of yourself.  And since we all have different stuff swirling around in the deepest parts of ourselves, art that some people find deeply moving is going to be actively alienating to others.  

Hence WFNX playing Sublime on what seems like an hourly basis.  Because WFNX, as a commercial station, has a responsibility to deliver your ears to the advertisers.  (This is what all commercial radio is for--the music is just a means to this end.) So they're far more likely to play a fundamentally safe and mediocre band like Sublime than they are to play, say, The Velvet Underground, which hits the list at number 34.  I love the Velvet Underground, but I get how it's not really for everybody, even the tiny slice of everybody that listens to WFNX. Even though apparently many of us like The Velvet Underground way more than we like Sublime, there are probably those who will change the station at the first sound of Lou Reed's, uh, distinctive voice, whereas something that is neither profoundly moving nor profoundly offensive such as Sublime's "Santeria" (Well, perhaps it's profoundly offensive to those who practice Orisha worship, but I guess that's a pretty small slice of the FNX listenership.) will probably be suffered through even by the people who don't really care for it.

(Just to be fair, I should point out that Radiohead hit number 4 on the survey, and I hate this band like they stole something from me. Clearly their music is not for everyone, and I'm one of the people it's not for.)

I should have a really interesting idea about how this relates to the business end of publishing and bookselling, but I'm honestly not sure.  Because publishers, to some degree, want to publish authors who are going to inspire the kind of fanatical devotion shown, for example The Clash, who are number one on the FNX survey despite not having released an album since 1983. (And no, we don't count Cut the Crap.  Everybody knows that.)  At the same time, publishers and booksellers (and authors!  Us too!) need to make money in order to survive, and producing stuff that alienates people is not good business.

And yet producing stuff that touches people is also good business.  As my end of year post revealed, I really loved Rick Yancey's The Monstrumologist.  I found it to be one of the best explorations of grief, guilt, and the legacy of parents that I've ever read.  And one of the reasons I loved it so much was that it was horribly gory.  But then, one of my preoccupations is the fact that our minds exist in these fragile and kind of gross sacks of meat and bones, which is one of the reasons I love horror.  The gore in the book made it, for me, more honest about the truth of life and death than most books.  And yet, for some people, the gore is just too gross.  

I wish I had a brilliant conclusion here.  I guess all I can say is that whether it's a book, a song, a tv show, or whatever, speak up loudly in support of art that moves you.  Because it's probably pissing off somebody else.